Marina Belozerskaya is a scholar of early modern European art. She is the author, most recently, of To Wake the Dead: A Renaissance Merchant and the Birth of Archaeology (2009) and The Medici Giraffe and Other Tales of Exotic Animals and Power (2006).

The New York Times

(Pliny told the story of an elephant who once wrote in the sand, in Greek letters, I, the elephant, wrote this.) Miscalculating, Pompey ordered the elephants slain, bringing the curses of the crowd down on his head.

Publishers Weekly

In Belozersakya's adept hands, exotic animals are mere jumping off points for marvelous adventures through worlds ranging from bustling, heroic Alexandria, Egypt, circa 300 B.C., to the creepy confines of William Randolph Hearst's San Simeon in the mid-20th century.

Entertainment Weekly

When Ptolemy Philadelphos, ruler of ancient Egypt, had his army parade through Alexandria, what most impressed onlookers were not his 80,000 soldiers but his nearly 100 elephants  which, at the time, had the same tactical advantages as modern tanks.